•
Analyze This:
Discovery reported Q4/’10 with revenues up 9% for the year to $3.77B; net income up 17% to $641M; 16.7M shares repurchased at an aggregate price of $605M. Full year growth in US nets was up 9% while international were up 11%. --- Changes in theatrical windows will, says
BTIG’s
Rich Greenfield, impact exhibitors soon ... thus a ‘sell’ rating on
Regal. Greenfield writes, “We expect premium-priced, early-release VOD to kick off in mid-2011 and expand into 2012, pressuring attendance (will already have tough comps to begin with) and ultimately lead to (valuation) multiple contraction.” More details
here (registration required). ---
Reuters reports
Blockbuster, unable to complete a deal with creditors, will put itself up for sale. --- Former NY
Gov. Mario Cuomo will attempt to mediate the fallout of the
Madoff Ponzi scheme’s trustee and the
NY Mets owners. ---
Dow Jones reports
Rupert Murdoch has acquired over $20M in
News Corp nonvoting stock.
•
Rules & Regs:
Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) wants strict cybersecurity controls on any bourse merger. --- The
House Communications & Internet Subcte. wants all 5
FCC commissioners to appear on 02/16 ... should be fun (hope it is on
C-SPAN!). Net neutrality, transparency and more on the agenda.
•
Retrans, Renewals & Carriage: Retrans will officially be on the 03/03
FCC docket.
•
Heads-Up: Lots of early March ‘madness’ as the
NFL lockout looms, retrans at the
FCC and the Federal government runs out of money (maybe).
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Advertising/Marketing: The
Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM) announced two independent, "proof-of-concept" pilot tests to measure three-screen users and their behavior with content and advertising across television, Internet and mobile. Both
Arbitron and
comScore will handle the "single source" cross-platform studies.
•
Up, Over & Down There: Iran is jamming the
BBC’s Persian TV service (too much Egyptian coverage). --- Europe’s
Cable Congress opens next week and
Solon reports cable is investing in broadband at twice the rate (23% of total revenues v. 12%) as telcos.
•
Mobile:
Microsoft and
Nokia announced a strategic partnership with Windows Phone and Bing the handset makers new ecosystem; Nokia shares opened down 8%.
Informa analyst
David McQueen calls it a “make-or-break” strategy for both. --- A ‘nano’ iPhone might be on the way.•
